Monday, October 23, 2017

During a
recent Gloucester Board of Supervisor and School Board candidate forum, York
District Candidate Kevin Farmer expressed concerns about real estate tax rates
and real estate tax assessments. § 58.1-3201 of the Code of Virginia requires
all property to be assessed at 100% of fair market value. If that is the case,
why does Gloucester County seem to adjust the values of property based on the
amount of money needed to run our local government? I have been asking that question
ever since Gloucester County Assistant Administrator Garrey Curry explained
such to me about three years ago. When Mr. Curry rendered his explanation to me
and another citizen, I told him under the method he described, one key element
is left out of the equation; fair market value of the property.

During the
candidate forum, current board members mocked at Mr. Farmer’s assertion that
increases in certain real estate assessment values is how they have avoided
increasing real estate tax rates each year. In Mr. Farmer’s defense, the
County, through certain assessment value increases, increased revenue from real
estate property taxes by $3 million since 2012.

I became
even more skeptical of Gloucester’s assessments in 2016 when the Board of
Supervisors approved a land swap deal with Gloucester resident Charles Kerns,
Jr.; in which the County traded two pieces of property for one of Mr. Kerns’
properties. When the deal was first presented to the Board of Supervisors, then
Chairperson John Meyer publicly asked, “Is the concept of swapping properties
the way the County wants to do business?” He then said, “Sounds like it has the
potential for a win win.” As it turns out, Supervisor Meyer had a stake in the
land swap deal, in that the entrance to his personal estate shares a property line
with the piece of land Mr. Kerns traded to the County.

During that time,
I was an appointed At-Large member of the Gloucester Public Utilities Advisory
Committee. Once I reviewed the seven properties contained in the land swap
proposal, I discovered serious flaws in the assessment values of the three key
properties contained in the deal. I pointed the flaws out to the Board and an
independent appraiser was hired by the County to determine the value of the
properties.

When the Board approved the land swap deal, their decision was based on the independent
appraisal values. The combined value of the County’s two properties at that
time was $35,000 and Mr. Kerns’ property was valued at $45,000. The combined
assessment values of the County’s two former properties after the deal changed
to $70,180 and the value of Mr. Kerns' former property changed to $41,780. At
the time the deal was approved, Mr. Kerns’ property was determined to be worth
$10,000 more than the property he received from the County. Within days of the
deal being made, the property Mr. Kerns received from the County was assessed
by the County to be worth $28,400 more than the property he unloaded on the County.
Not wanting to be associated with corruption, I resigned from the Utilities Advisory Committee immediately after the Board
approved the corrupt land swap deal.

The land
swap deal story did not end there. Three months after the Board approved the
deal, the Gloucester Mathews Gazette Journal listed one of Mr. Kerns new
properties as being sold for $55,000. According to online property records; Mr.
Kerns sold it to the property owner who has lived right next door to the
property since 1998. Why didn’t the Board offer the property to the adjacent
landowners before trading it to Mr. Kerns? Even Mr. Kerns’ offered to sell his
property to Supervisor Meyer before offering it to the County. Something tells
me the new owner would have preferred to buy the property for the $30,000
independent appraisal value; saving $25,000.

One can’t
help but wonder if the whole corrupt land swap deal was perpetrated to keep
anything from being built at the entrance to Supervisors Meyer’s and Mr. Kerns’
estates. One can easily assume the recent paving of the entrance of Summerville
Road to the end of Mr. Meyer’s property line was funded with money from the
land sold by Mr. Kerns. One could also easily assume this was done to move the
entrance to Mr. Meyer’s estate so it is easier to find by his Airbnb customers.
Despite whether or not these assumptions are correct, one fact remains; manipulation
of the assessment values is clearly evident and is nothing short of government
corruption. This deal needs to be investigated and those found guilty of
corruption and conspiracy to commit corruption need to be held accountable.

Below we
have provided a listing of randomly selected waterfront properties in four
different areas of Gloucester County. Notice how the smaller the property is,
the higher the assessed value per acre is. We have also provided a Slideshare presentation of Frequently Asked Questions about real estate tax assessments.